Flash
by Val Evenstar
Summary: Short scenes from the world of Narnia. It'll become like a photo album, I guess. Read, reveiw, enjoy!
1. Arrival

**Arrival**

_by Val Evenstar_

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**Author's Note:** I saw this picture in my head one day, so I wrote it down. I've been seeing other little pictures of Narnia lately, so I'll write those down and post them here over time. It'll be my photo-album of Narnia, I guess.

This first one may lean a little towards _Pirates of Calormen_ - type imagery, but oh well. Enjoy!

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As the man stared at the cloud, he willed his keen dark eyes to see the shape in it. He knew it was there, but he did not know if it was no longer white. Putting a hand on the railing, he steadied himself as the sea-swells shook the ship. His skin was burnt brown by not only the sun, but also the virtue of his race.

"My master, there is land in sight!" cried a voice from above.

But the man didn't look up. He'd known for a long time that they were approaching their destination; he didn't need to know that the land was there; he needed to know what it was like.

The last time he'd sailed up this coast, he'd been greeted by a penetrating cold and a werewolf of stone, perched upon the skeleton of a man – the last sailor who had dared venture there.

So it was with anxiety that he started to make out the features of this northern land as the ship made its slow way in from the sea.

Timbers creaked; the vessel tilted as a gust of air pulled at its sails, and he blinked; surely he was imagining it...

The ship steadied, and he gasped. The land was green! It was green and fresh and lovely, and on its edge there shone a great palace, as if the morning star itself had come to rest on these brilliant shores. This now was the land called Narnia.

It was beautiful and perfect, a succulent fruit on the vine, fresh for the picking.

The man's lips twisted in a greedy smile. So the reports had been true. The Witch had been vanquished, and Narnia was good – oh, so good!

And he could hardly wait for it to be his.

Bloodred sails rose above the Narnian horizon.

Sordeeb Tarkaan of Calormen had arrived.


	2. Valediction

**Valediction**

_by Val Evenstar_

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**Author's Note:** This is totally unrelated to the previous chapter, in case you were wondering. At first I'd meant to write about Ramandu's daughter, but my thoughts became drawn more to the father's so ... here it is! Maybe I'll write the same scene from his daughter's POV at some point, but I'm not sure. Enjoy!

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She stood with her palms facing up, back straight and eyes straining in the pre-dawn light. Her father stood beside her, fully aware of the tension lacing his only daughter's shoulders. His soft grey eyes swept over her face, and despite its smoothness he could read the small lines that spoke of worry and anticipation.

His beard was long but he had lived longer; longer still it seemed since feelings similar to his daughter's had stirred in his breast.

The sky was alight now with a golden haze; it was magnificent and promised great things, but to the old man, his daughter's slender form promised much, much more. He was her father and so he wished her every happiness, but she was now of the age that only another man could bring it to her.

She was waiting for him.

Ramandu did not want to see his only child leave, but leave she must, and he would not hold her back; doing so would only hurt them both.

The great gold disk of the sun flashed above the smooth sea, and father and daughter began to sing. He sang the timeless song, the song of praise and joy that he poured out every moment to his Creator. She sang the same, yet there was prayer in her voice – a deep yearning, a desperation she revealed as she bared her soul to the great Lion.

The old man felt something, deep inside him, and was frightened.

Such prayers would not go unanswered.

He could see the flutter of myriad wings as the birds came to him from the valleys of the Sun, and knew that he could not, in all fairness, keep his daughter here until he once again trod the paths of the sky.

Another bird came from the East – one that would take his daughter away.

Its wings were golden purple in the sunrise, yet the body they carried had the head of a dragon.

Ramandu looked at his daughter and he knew that she, too, had seen it. His heart ached with joy and sorrow, for he could see the wild ecstasy in her eyes and the tremble in her limbs. Her voice soared high with a piercing shout of thanks and wordless gratitude, and she met his eyes.

He looked at her, so beautiful in the island dawn, and tears filled his eyes as the corner of his mouth curved up in a smile.

She would go, but not without his blessing.

He felt her slender arms around his neck and her soft lips on his cheek, and then her was watching her run, gold hair flying as she raced seaward.

Tears slid down his wrinkled face as Ramandu lifted his voice in song to the Lion. Love had called to her, and she had answered, as had he, so long ago.

_Go with them, Aslan_, he said silently. _Love them, keep them, and let her always, always know how much I love her..._

A fire-orange bird approached, a bright berry in its beak, but Ramandu couldn't see, couldn't hear; he didn't want her to go, didn't want her to leave, not until...

Brushing aside the flaming feathers, he began to run. Old bones protested but he ignored them, driven by the dread knowledge in his heart.

Sails grew larger as the dragon slid through the magical waters, and Ramandu raced it to the shore.

His only child would leave, but not until he had spoken these words one last time: _My daughter, I love you._


	3. Arthur

**Arthur**

_by Val Evenstar_

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**Author's Note:** This one sparked so many ideas - I'm afraid that it will shortly become the epilogue to an epic I want to write... which will be the prequel to the one I'm already writing. Confused? Well, I haven't got it straight yet either. But please do enjoy - if it's at all possible to enjoy this sort of thing.

This is meant to be just before Jadis took over Narnia, but it can be read as AU/CD as well. Oh, and please keep the title in mind as you read. And if you can suggest any improvements, please do!

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Black, black, black covered the once fair earth. From horizon to horizon, from the Northern ridges to the Southern fields, stretched a grim expanse – the devastation and stench of war, a war without hope. Rotting corpses lay where once were feasts and festivals, where wildflowers grew and children played.

Now there was only silence - silence and darkness.

The day was dying; the land was already dead. Lost! Lost! Lost in an attempt to save, lost in trying to keep it.

In the center of the battlefield, surrounded by the expiring earth, was a lone blade.

Jammed into the dirt in a fit of fury, in the final moments of its owner, it stood, steel shining through the crusted blackened blood of its enemies. On its handle dried the solitary drops of bright red blood. Blue blood.

A lion rampart decorated the cold pommel.

The grey twilight dimmed as the winds swept in from the West. Ash and dirt, laden with the scent of death, swirled around the field, settling on the bodies but parted by the blade.

Silence reigned over the still earth, and a white snow began to fall. Frost invaded the bones scattered there and took hold of them, burying fallen warriors in harsh ice coffins as the conquerors reveled in the ungodly sight.

But still a single shaft of moonlight reflected silver off the sword.


	4. Get Up

**Get Up**

_by Val Evenstar_

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A/N: It's been a loooong time since I've written... so here's an attempt or two to warm up the old fingers and do a couple of sketches.

"I'll knock you down!" Corin hollered, taking the stairs two at a time in pursuit of his brother. His twin was, Corin noted, very likely to run himself into a corner soon, because this was the old part of the castle and here there were still nooks and crannies that Corin didn't know about, much less his newly-arrived brother. This gave him a bit of devilish satisfaction, an emotion that, had he stopped to think about it, would have caused him some shame. But Cor was far better at thinking about that sort of thing, and Corin much preferred the thrill of the chase, so to each his own.

"I didn't... mean it," Cor managed to throw back over his shoulder as he reached the ground floor and skidded around the base of the staircase, only to frantically sprint off down the closest hallway. Corin merely responded with a wild whoop, jumping over the last four steps in an attempt to close the distance that separated the two.

The chase ended soon enough, as did the hallway; Cor desperately burst through the last door on the right, then slid to a halt; it was a dead end. Turning, he let slip a few of the more unpleasant words he had learned from Arsheesh, as he saw Corin leap triumphantly into the room. He had barely a second before he realized that Corin's words were not just an empty threat this time, and had just managed to raise his hands defensively when his twin's fists struck out and Cor found himself on the dusty floor of an unused storeroom.

Corin stepped back, still moving lightly on the balls of his feet as he had been taught. He was momentarily puzzled at his brother's lack of resistance, but to tell the truth he was really more concerned with congratulating himself that his double strike (which his instructor had told him emphatically could never work) had in fact succeeded. After a sufficient period of celebration, which mostly consisted of reenacting the aforementioned move several times on the air in front of him, Corin noticed something odd. He stopped his attempts to knock down the atmosphere and stood still. "Well?" he demanded of his brother.

"Well what?" answered Cor, and we can forgive him if he sounded more than a little bit peevish; he had, after all, a newly formed bruise on his temple.

"Well, what are you going to do now?" Corin said, looking down at him.

Cor stared up at him crossly, one arm still raised over his head in self defence. "I'm going to wait until you come to your senses and stop trying to box me all the way to Narnia." The best way to deal with people's fits of temper, Cor had learned, was to just grin and bear it, and not do anything to provoke them. Then hopefully they would get bored and leave one to one's own business. This had usually worked whenever Arsheesh got particularly upset with him; the old man simply didn't have the strength to go on yelling or throwing things or smacking him for long.

To Cor's great surprise, a look of vast confusion was forming on his brother's face.

"No," Corin said, in a manner that can only be described as distressed. "I knocked you down!" He looked at Cor expectantly, as if that should clear everything up.

It did not. Corin's previous expression now took up residence on Cor's features. "Yes, you did," the older boy agreed, not sure why they were simply reaffirming the obvious.

"Well so don't just sit there!"

It occurred to Cor that maybe it would be satisfying to knock Corin down, although he wasn't sure what the good King Lune would think of that, even were he able to carry out this fantasy. But - "I think I'll stay down here, if you don't mind," he said.

"No, no," Corin cried, obviously perplexed, though for what reason Cor couldn't imagine. "I _knocked you down_. Don't you see, I haven't the right to do that, nor has anyone! So you can't just take that!"

Cor blinked. Could he really be expected to hit the king's son, in his own house, without any consequences? He shook his head, and reminded himself again that if Corin was his brother, King Lune was also his father. And this was his house as well. But in Calormen he had known how unwise it was to show cheek to his betters, even though they, same as anyone, had no right to knock him down...

"Get up, silly!" Corin said earnestly, extending his hand. "When someone knocks you down, you've got to get back up!"

It was, Cor wondered, the only thing Corin knew to do, and the one thing he found most foreign to his thinking. Feeling oddly humbled, but very much an Archenlander, Cor took his brother's hand and got up.

"There, you see?" Corin exclaimed. "Now I can knock you down again!"


End file.
